


The Guest is gold and crimson

by middlemarch



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Childhood, F/M, Fluff, Marriage, Memories, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 10:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8245469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: It's easy to talk in the moonlight.





	

“Do you know, the first time I saw you at dinner wearing your tiara, all I could think was that you looked like a fairy tale princess,” Matthew said.

“Oh, Matthew! Really!” Mary laughed. 

This was possibly the time she liked best, when they lay together in their bed at the end of the night, easy with each other, her head laid against his chest. He would stroke her back and usually nudge one of the silk straps of her nightdress aside so he could draw his hand across to her shoulder and pull her closer. Everything was softer with her then and sharper with him, the dry wit the War had blunted returned to him, the Lady Mary of the drawing room disappeared. She would let herself admit every sort of desire, for his mouth to follow his hands, an apple charlotte at tea, another horse for the stable, to spell Nyx. He’d never had as hard a time with confession but he was more willing to be foolish or proud and would utter such endearments she could hardly believe he was an English aristocrat.

“I couldn’t help it, I know you think I’m sentimental and terribly middle-class, but there you were, so stunningly lovely, and all the diamonds in your hair…How you sat in your seat like a throne,” he went on. It seemed so long ago! Had she ever been that girl?

“Granny would like that at least, that my posture was regal,” she said. “Then she’d laugh at you.”

“As you have?”

“No, no one can compare with Granny. Shall I tell you a secret then? So you might not feel so very silly,” she asked, looking up at him. His blue eyes were greyer in the night, his hair silvered. She thought it was a glimpse of the future, all the nights they would have together in this bed.

“I’ll never say no to a secret,” he replied.

“Oh, I know. You’re a terrible gossip,” she quipped.

“Hush. Or rather, don’t. You were saying…”

“When you joined up, that first night you wore your uniform, I felt like one of Papa’s tin soldiers had come to life and I finally saw their appeal. Everything about you just…shone. You dazzled me, I couldn’t think what to say,” she said, the memory still vivid, the way feeling for him had shivered along every edge of her, the air in the room sudden on the bare nape of her neck, the weight of her necklace draped over her breasts.

“Hmm. You were awfully quiet over your soup, weren’t you? I just thought you didn’t care for turtle,” he said, the affectionate amusement in his voice nearly masking any of the strain they’d both felt those days.

“Oh, you! You are a bad husband, you were meant to kiss me then, not mock me,” she exclaimed, liking the way they could play so openly, how relaxed he was, how unhurried their exchanges could be.

“Is that so?” he asked and turned, so she was in his arms and he was above her, filling her view with his dear face, a hand reaching for her breast through the silk, confident that she would arch up into his touch, correct and so exquisite.

“Perhaps that’s what wanted now, d’you think?” he said in a low, dirty baritone meant only for her, that she’d heard first on their honeymoon and had gasped with delight at, the discovery and its delicious consequence.

“Why don’t you convince me? Don’t let all your experience as a barrister go to waste,” she murmured until she could not, his mouth against hers, all memory swept aside with the first caress, princesses and Captains forgotten, only Matthew of any importance, all importance, _good, so good_ falling from her lips when he took his away for an instant.

“Shall the prosecution rest?” How he managed to say it, she didn’t know but he did, that was her Matthew.

“God, no. Keep arguing,” she got out and the shivered at the way his laughter felt at her throat, between her breasts, where her heart beat like any woman’s, princess or peasant.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a little something fluffy to make up for my more angsty Sybil piece. I saw a picture of Mary in one of her tiaras and I just thought of this scene. The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
